Monday, April 27, 2009

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

The thing I enjoyed most about this April challenge was the freedom we were given in creating a cheesecake of our liking. I made these cheesecake cupcakes for our Easter brunch. Originally, I was going to do a red velvet cheesecake since our brunch had a Louisiana/Southern theme, but then I saw a recipe for cheesecake cupcakes topped with lemon curd so I decided to use the rest of my Meyer lemon curd and make lemon cheesecakes instead. I made very few changes to the recipe. I left out the vanilla in the crust and instead of using lemon juice in the cheese mixture, I used a few teaspoons of zest from the large batch of lemons that Raulito gave me a while ago. Also, instead of cream, I used a bit of sour cream and no vanilla. Making the cheesecake was really easy. I pressed the crust into the wrappers in the muffin tin, filled with the batter and baked. This was a straightforward challenge that I really enjoyed and I am pretty sure my friends enjoyed the results. Making little cheesecakes like this was a great way to enjoy cheesecake without too much guilt. The original recipe can be found on Jenny's site. The other Daring Bakers got really creative with their flavor combinations. Visit the blogroll to check them out!

(Couldn't decide which plate I liked better, lol)

PS, Didn't meet Curtis Stone yesterday (unfortch), but Giada was nice. More on that tomorrow.

What a great idea, cheesecake cupcakes!! Very ingenius and I love the meyer lemon flavouring. Lemon pairs so well with the richness of the cream cheese, while playing up it's tang. It sounds refrehshing and delightful indeed :)